Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering

ISSN for PRINT: 1072-8325

For Online Access

Best Paper Award Selection - Editorial Board Site

2003, Volume9

Issue 3&4

218 pages

DOI: 10.1615/JWomenMinorScienEng.v9.i34

Issue price - $84.00

Anne M. Barker
The John D. Hromi Center for Quality and Applied Statistics, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY

The field of engineering has been one of the most difficult for women to enter. Even with an increase in the proportion of women in the engineering workforce from 0.3% before the 1970s to 9.5% in 1999, women are still seriously underrepresented. This article examines the history of women in engineering in the United States during World War II. Women were actively recruited as engineering aides by the federal government, which saw them as a temporary substitute for men who were in the military. Yet this crisis did not break down the barriers to and prejudices against women in engineering, nor did it give them a real opportunity to become professional engineers equal to men. After the war, calls for a return to normalcy were used to reestablish social norms, which kept women at home and reserved desirable places in the workforce, including in engineering, for men.

DOI: 10.1615/JWomenMinorScienEng.v9.i34.10 Download article, 20 pages

Article price - $35.00

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